Wait time for public health specialists falls from 16 years in 2018 to less than 10

In a great start to 2021, the maximum wait to see a public health specialist in SA has finally fallen to less than a decade. Hey, it was 16 years.

Efforts to drag down huge waiting times just to get an appointment to see some public hospital specialists are slowly paying dividends with no maximum wait time now beyond a decade – compared with up to 16 years for a consultation in 2018.

SA Health data shows there were six instances where the maximum wait was more than 100 months in the September quarter, compared to eight in the previous quarter.

One of the big improvers – of sorts – was an appointment for a neurosurgery consultation at Flinders Medical Centre, which had been 126 months, or ten and a half years, but is now a still-whopping 114 months.

The maximum wait for an ear, nose and throat consultation at the Royal Adelaide Hospital fell from 122 months to 112 months.

These are for patients classified as routine or non-urgent – urgent cases are expected to be seen by a clinician within 30 days.

Wait times vary considerably between hospitals and specialities, and in many cases there is no waiting at all, but conditions including urology and ophthalmology have big queues.

The median wait for a cardiothoracic consult at the RAH is one year yet there is no wait at FMC.

Median wait times fell in some cases – such as from 28 months to 13 months for cardiology at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and for neurology at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital the wait fell from nine months to under one month – but rose in others such as endocrinology at Flinders Medical Centre edging up from 14 to 15 months.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Michael Cusack previously told The Advertiser he hoped a $1.5m overhaul of the system – including asking GPs to audit all patients who have been waiting three years or longer in an effort to clear the backlog – should see average waiting times for an appointment swiftly slashed by 30 to 40 per cent.

Other initiatives include a focus on alternative care pathways and putting patients back in GP care after an specialist consultation, rather than clogging the system with ongoing outpatient reviews.

“As part of the Outpatient System Redesign Program, Local Health Networks are committed to reducing waiting times and each LHN is completing targeted actions to ensure this is delivered,” Dr Cusack said.

“Actions include clinically reviewing all patients waiting over three years, additional clinics, improved processes that support work flows, and data audits to review and improve the accuracy of hospital outpatient waiting lists.

“We are working closely with GPs and health practitioners to improve communication and provide guidance when referring patients for specialist care.”

These figures relate to an appointment with a specialist, not the wait for patients who may then be put on the wait list for elective surgery if needed.

On Monday there were 19,944 people on public elective surgery waiting lists marked as “ready for surgery” and 2367 listed as overdue.